Ever since the Kickstarter there has been a flow of people who either don't have the time, or don't want to read through the blog. I've been meaning to do this for a while, and as the Blog has grown considerably, I thought I would pull the links to most of the blogs that discuss key design aspects of the game, as they are referenced constantly here, and it is a pain to go through the entire blog to find a single reference.(some organization over on the blog side would be nice, like post tags, and categories... and not everything in one stream of text.)

I'm not sure if it applies over here, but I would recommend making a list say in google groups or even with the paizo lists. There's that short span of time you can edit stuff, and it probably passed :(

Yup, I hear ya. Luckily, there are umpteen dozen themepark MMOs for you where you don't have to worry about it. We already know how those games develop: They have a big spike, a maximum level of success, then a collapse followed by server consolidation and a starvation of future development investment due to a failure to "compete" with World of Warcraft. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is one of the definitions of insanity.

The only way for Pathfinder Online to be successful is to carve out its own niche and be different from those umpteen dozen other games. This is one of the ways we're doing it. Pathfinder Online won't be all things to all people. Instead, it will be a great thing for the people who want what it is. And that thing includes a world where you will face consequences that are meaningful and persistent. It's not a place where you go just for easy fun and no stress. Instead, it's a virtual world that's going to be as meaningful to you as parts of your real life.

Vic Wertz wrote:

Pathfinder Online will not be published under the OGL, and so we don't have free access to everything in Wizards of the Coast's SRD. Now, US intellectual properties law says that game mechanics are not copyrightable—only the specific *expression* of those mechanics is—so that *doesn't* mean we have to avoid the basic concepts—just a fairly small subset of things that are uniquely "D&D". However, even some of the basic concepts that we *could* use simply don't work as well in an MMO as they do on the tabletop, so we won't necessarily even use everything that we *can* use.

In short, this topic is complicated enough that answering the question with specific details isn't really possible. But what you really need to know is this: Pathfinder Online will seek to capture the general feel of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, but it will *not* be an electronic adaptation of the tabletop RPG rules. (Neither will it be a "testing ground" for a future edition of the Pathfinder RPG, as some have speculated—it's a different game and it has different requirements.)

You are correct that many folks on these boards are getting mired down in the concept of adapting mechanics from the RPG. When we talk about features, the community trying to evaluate them in terms of specific RPG rules is, more often than not, likely to be limiting and counterproductive.

I haven't read the entirety of this thread as...well, that's a lot of reading, but I did want to pop in and make some points as to our current design goals. Now this is all still being worked out, but it gives you an idea of the directions we are heading:

1) Characters ramp up in power very quickly initially, and slow down over time. Also a starting character probably has 500-600 hit points, meaning while a max level Barbarian (the hit point leaders) will have around 1800 (a max level fighter 1600, rogue/cleric 1400, mage/sorcerer 1200 though this varies as it is an open system and people can buy more if they want) it's not a vast increase. So the level differential you see in many MMOs is not going to be such a thing; a team of starter characters can kill much more experienced characters. NOTE: These numbers are likely to change, but the proportions will remain roughly the same.

2) Our goal in our PvP systems design is to allow players to kill each other if they want, but put mechanical safeguards in that make the decision to do so one that needs some extra reason beyond simple greed or spite for it to make sense rationally. For example, if a player attacks an innocent, non-PvP focused crafter minding his own business the attacker will lose suffer the following:
a) The attacker gets a flag, labeling him a criminal. Anyone can kill him now without suffering Reputation or Alignment penalties, and killing him actually makes your Alignment more Lawful. Becoming Lawful is generally pretty hard to do, so people with the Criminal trait will be prized targets. Note that anyone who helps a person with the Criminal trait, such as healing them or buffing them, also gets the Criminal trait. It is infectious.
b) The attacker loses points on his Alignment, shifting him towards both Chaos and Evil. This means he drags down the Alignment of any settlement or venture company he is a member of, and Chaotic settlements are less efficient and effective than Lawful settlements. So his...

@Blaeringr
I'm keeping it to developer posts, I don't want to encourage community driven information, we have already had a few instances where community discussion became perceived as fact(murder in the wild). The post has to either be by a dev or be specifically quoted and validated by a dev.

Our intention is that Wizards will all have access to craft skills to disassemble and reassemble spellbooks (likely based on the Spellcraft skill, naturally). So if you loot a few spellbooks that each have one or two spells you want and several you don't, you can take them apart (into individual spells) and then create a new book with just the ones you like (and sell the rest or save them for later). There will likely be "research wizards" that find a niche making cool books for other wizards that don't want to fiddle with the crafting system.

We're still discussing the more fine-grained mechanics internally, and we may have additional permutations on the system once we get a better idea of how spells will be balanced.

... I don't want to encourage community driven information, we have already had a few instances where community discussion became perceived as fact(murder in the wild). The post has to either be by a dev or be specifically quoted and validated by a dev.

...

You know this recommendation should be a clear and official rule, IMV. I have been presuming my thoughts and opinions would be seen as only that: the idea that my speculative posts might be mistaken for something more than that is appalling.

I wish to propose thoughts and ideas, concepts and mechanics for the community and the devs to consider (or correct, so that I might not delude myself further). I would have a problem of conscience doing so were any of my wild speculations to ba taken as canon by the overly gullible and inexperienced.

Yeah, this is a very old thread and the blogs recently underwent a significant reorganization.

There's a complete list of Goblinworks Blogs in the Game Information section of the Guild Recruitment & Helpful Links list. There's a short description for each to give you a quick idea of the material covered.

There's also a notice at the top of that list explaining that many of the links from the discussion threads are broken. The best way to deal with that right now is to use the date of the original post in the discussion thread to navigate to the proper month and year, and then select the appropriate blog name.

It's woefully inadequate to the task, but I hope it prove at least somewhat useful.

I would also encourage you to ask any questions you have. For the most part, folks around here are friendly and willing to answer questions and even provide relevant links for further research. It helps a lot to have some memory of the prior conversations when trying to find the right search keywords.